The Supreme Court on Monday rejected at the admission stage a public interest litigation writ petition for a direction to scrutinise the accounts of the Board of Control for Cricket in India by the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India.

‘Not under RTI Act’

Earlier, when Manjusha Wadhawa, counsel for the petitioner, said the accounts should be audited by the CAG for the transparent functioning of the BCCI as it represented the Indian team, Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia asked her whether at present the board’s accounts were not being audited as per the Companies Act. Counsel said the BCCI did not come under the RTI Act.

Justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar were on the three-member Bench which dismissed the petition filed by Hindi journalist Alok Varshney

‘Keep off BCCI’

The petitioner said the BCCI had been in the news recently because of an alleged scam in the Indian Premier League.

He wanted politicians kept out of the BCCI management and, instead, former cricketers asked to take over the administration.

The BCCI should be made accountable to a non-bureaucratic autonomous authority, “which gives priority to ensuring that cricket remains a gentleman’s game.”

Mr. Varshney also wanted a probe into the telecast rights given for all international matches and until it was completed, telecast rights should be given only to Doordarshan.